How one Dem governor stays off Trump's enemies list [View all]

Politico

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s approach to the coronavirus crisis makes him an outlier among his big-state Democratic colleagues.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN

04/18/2020 07:00 AM EDT

PHILADELPHIA — Across the country, Democratic governors battling coronavirus have bashed President Donald Trump for botching the federal response, upstaged him on television, and even trolled him by proudly reappropriating his derogatory nicknames.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf is following a different approach.

The soft-spoken Democrat rarely does national TV. His news conferences don’t regularly air on cable news like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s. Sometimes, he even praises Vice President Mike Pence.

“They’ve done pretty well,” Wolf said in an interview with POLITICO. “We needed additional N95 masks and I had a couple conversations with the vice president and he actually made it happen.”

It’s a leadership model that has left some Democrats quietly wishing he were a more prominent figure — and a more critical voice — during the crisis. But as the governor of a big battleground state that Trump carried in 2016, Wolf isn’t afforded the same luxuries as his blue-state colleagues.

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